Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Istanbul, Turkey (Airport; July 4, 2014)

As right now, nothing too exciting had happened on my trip. I had gotten very little sleep, having left for the Dammam Airport at 10:30 PM. Too early to sleep beforehand, too late to not to be tired. I think I got around an hour's sleep throughout the flight (It was 4 hours). Awesomely enough, there wasn't anyone in the middle seat. Just the guy on the aisle and me at the window! Other than that the plane was pretty full. They fed us at 3 AM (our flight had left at 1:55 AM) due to Ramadan. That time was really too early to eat breakfast, but I was surprisingly hungry. Once I got off the airplane, it was super confusing. There were crowds of people, and no distinctive way to go. I did not have my boarding pass, and no one told me where to obtain it. So, greatly confused, I did the thing that any reasonable person would do. When in doubt, join the big line. Even if you don't know where it goes. It turned out that it was the security line (why would you need to go through a security line right off the plane, I have no idea. You just got through a security line!!!!) and in order to go through security you needed your boarding pass. So I asked a security advisor guy (as he seemed to know what was up) what to do, and as it turned out, I had to leave that line and go the Air Canada desk. So I thanked him and left the line. The thing about that desk is that it was not obvious that it was Air Canada. It was in combination with multiple airlines, and it looked like it was part of Turkish Airlines. You had to look a the tiny sign that had all the airlines on it. Anyway, after I go into the correct line (it was super short) I got to the airline desk. Getting the pass was no issue, and I was soon on my way back to the security line. When I got back in it is was shorter, and without any more ado, I got through security. Then I bought some turkish delight, (YUM!! Completely recommend buying some if you are passing through Turkey; nobody makes it like the Turkish!) and got some food. Once I settled down at the food court, I tried the internet. As it turned out, the internet is not free in the Istanbul airport, so just a heads up. I was a little astonished, as I thought it would be free, but no biggie. :D It was no trouble for me to enter the gate, but apparently, if you are not Canadian or American, and have a passport other than those two, they really put you through the twenty questions. I was a little shocked, because I thought you usually got questioned like that at customs, and not to enter the Air Canada gate in the Istanbul airport, who knew? I waited at the gate, got on the plane, and settled in for the longest leg of my journey, 11 hours. I was super ecstatic, because like the last flight, there was no one in the middle seat! I had no idea that I going to have any trouble, because as of that moment, everything had gone very smoothly.